Will the Obama FCC dance to the tune set by the furthest left wing of the President’s party, in an election year where the electorate is going to be much further to the right than the one that re-elected the President?

Barack Obama showed weakness when he even floated the possibility that America would turn our control of ICANN over to other countries. Down in Brazil they’re all over that idea (the anarchists are claiming they want a non-governmental control, but look, in a world with Russia and China, and even the EU countries like Germany having ‘national champions’, that’s not happening). India’s game, too. Republicans, and heck it’d help if Democrats did it to, must signal that the next President will not let this happen.

Seems like I’m always coming up with excuses not to post, but I knew nobody would read if I posted over Thanksgiving, so I just ate ham instead. I’m now at risk of turning into bacon, I’ve had so much.

I do apologize if I don’t go as in-depth tonight as I should. I think I’m coming down with something.

There goes Pandora. They appear to be giving up on getting their law passed that would give them a sweetheart regulatory deal, stomping on any need they’d have to negotiate in the marketplace. They don’t want competition or a marketplace. They want a command economy for music expanded beyond the insane system we already have in place for terrestrial radio. It’s good we’ve defeated their legal aims.

Speaking of picking winners and losers in regulation, here’s why they’re trying to kill Aereo. Broadcasters and cable companies are feeling threatened by the loss of revenues that are threatened by the push to go back to free terrestrial broadcasts, and we can’t let them get away with using government to prop themselves up.

A cell of Anonymous anarchists tried to “pay back’ Hollywood for getting The Pirate Bay, but it is they who are paying the price. Ruining your life because you want to download free stuff on the Internet. Heh.

I have to say, my initial reaction to accusing Google of wiretapping is absurd. Think about it: the whole concept of wiretapping is that you’re intercepting communications from person A to person B. If Google ads are wiretapping, them spam filtering would be wiretapping, since you’re also scanning an email to do that.

We’ve discussed in the past how Pandora was trying to get government to change the rules in its favor against copyright holders, because the government had previously tilted the scales in favor of broadcast radio against copyright holders, in the form of a proposed law known as IRFA. Pandora’s clearly wrong about that, as we should have a level playing field and not be picking winners and losers at all. But one good consequence could be a bill that would go the other way, an anti-IRFA: repealing the laws that favor broadcast radio to begin with. Just ditch the whole compulsory licensing system.

ECPA reform is being held in the Senate. Leaky Leahy says it’s a Republican doing it. I wonder who? Lindsey Graham? John McCain? I’m not entirely convinced that the bill is necessary, but I don’t think it’s a particularly idea as long as we preserve something along the lines of FISA.

If you really want your email to be private, don’t have it all run through Google.

Update on ECPA reform: Last time I commented that it was problematic to give such strong protections to terrorist emails on American corporate-run servers. Well, it turns out ECPA reform backers are listening, and have pointed out to me that FISA will work just fine in those cases. Fair point. I still don’t think the law makes sense, but at least it’s not too terribly harmful.

This tutorial to “NSA-proof your email” is all wrong. All wrong. You NSA-proof your email by using end-to-end encryption, not by using transport level encryption. Hosing your own email is a great idea, mind you (it makes the ECPA-related issues moot), but NSA can still spy on you all they want if you follow that webpage’s instructions.

Woof. This week I had my worst cold in years, the worst I had since the first CPAC I attended. Boy was that a miserable trip home, let me tell you, sick as a dog, with insufficient Claritin Ds to get me through it. I was lucky the middle seat was empty for me on both flights I had to get home! At least this week I could stay home, and sleep.

I’ve got a ton to cover, and I’m not really at 100% yet, so apologies for making this a bit scattershot tonight. Especially since the victory in Texas distracted me from finishing this promptly! (Edit: It’s also help if I remembered to hit Publish…)

Some issues that face us in the tech world get complicated fast, especially when it comes to changing existing Washington regulations. The Internet Radio Fairness Act is one of those messy issues. Please welcome Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who answered some questions for us on that issue.

How would you describe IRFA, the Internet Radio Fairness Act, to a concerned conservative activist?

Conservatives can agree that music distribution companies should be free to choose a business model that makes the most sense for them, and this includes launching legal, digital broadcasting ventures. But the so-called Internet Radio Fairness Act (H.R. 6480) was introduced last Congress to help webcasters like Pandora and radio stations artificially reduce a key input cost – the amount the government says webcasters should pay recording artists for access to their music.

Many conservatives believe the tipping point has tipped – that a majority of Americans are either ill-informed, uneducated, delusional, foolish, feel entitled or are just plain lazy to the point where they will continue to vote for the Party or candidate they feel will give them more and more free stuff. Young kids espousing socialism over capitalism; rich liberals with their guilt and hypocrisy about | Read More »